a/n: Disclaimer: I don't own the Musketeers and general zombie concerns.

Note: Thanks for the continuing and lovely reviews, you all seem to support I have a claim on sanity, but well just have to see. You've all probably been wondering what the hell has happened/been going on, with Lemay—well, eat your hearts out!

Chapter includes (warning/spoilers): torture,

the M~U~S~K~E~T~E~E~R~S - S~R~E~E~T~E~K~S~U~M eht

Life is Death is Dead
Chapter 6: —

Lemay knelt over the body of the Red Guard on the ground in d'Artagnan's cell. He looked at it in pure astonishment. The alarm was already raised of the break in and stolen 'property'. Right this moment, he was sure Milady was speaking with the Cardinal. When he'd stolen from the Palace two nights prior and reported on the existence of the boy—he wasn't entirely sure that he was believed, but for the Spaniard. So when he returned, and came to d'Artagnan's cell, he acted on the hope that they did. And much to his reduced anxiety, at least on that matter, the day after, the boy was gone.

Part of him was relieved, of course—this had been his intention, for them to rescue the boy. But the discovery he had made upon examining the dead Guard, had him facing the other direction. That part of him that had let him go through with experimenting on the boy. The scientific discovery, the extension of humanity.

There truly was a cure. But he had been so stupid, so foolish. It wasn't in the blood! Excitement ripped through him like nothing he'd ever felt before. But then dread boxed with it. This was something amazing, but if the Cardinal or Milady discovered that there was a way...

He took a small dagger from his kit, and with a quick glance to make sure he wasn't being observed, punctured the dead man's skull to his brain through his temple with shaking hands. There had been no mark on the man beforehand, and he prayed that he was the only one to examine the Guard at such closeness, that when he was discovered, there was more panic on the missing Gascon than of a man already dead.

As he heard the approach coming down the hall, he quickly wiped the small dagger clean and put it back in his bag. He quickly shifted one of the long locks of hair to obscure the man's temple, before he climbed to his feet and exhaled. He turned and found the very woman that he feared standing in the open gate.

Milady watched him with green lizard eyes. "Lemay."

"Milady." He bowed his head nervously. "What—" he shot a glance at the body. "What happened? Where's the boy?"

"That's the very same question I came to ask you."

"M-me?" he shook his head in confusion.

"Yes." She slowly started to step towards him from the gateway. "Where is d'Artagnan? Who took him?" She stopped in front of him, close.

His feet were frozen with fear and he shook his head. It took him a long moment to speak around the lump in his throat. This was one of his worst fears, and though he had been expecting it, it didn't make him any less scared. "I don't know." He swore. "I arrived this morning, and he was gone. Just like you. I swear, Milady."

"I'll discover that for myself. Take him." She commanded, and two Red Guards entered the cell.

Lemay scrambled backwards, his eyes wide, and tripped over the dead body of the fallen Guard. The two soldiers grabbed either of his arms and hauled him to his feet.

"You can't do this!" he screamed as they dragged him down the tunnel. "You need me! You need me!"

"Do you see an immune boy anywhere around here?" Milady wondered, following after in a casual pace. "So until then, I have something more fun in store for you."

He was dragged to the middle cell that held the two tilted and altered tables, the cells on either side held those that had been injected with d'Artagnan's blood, and then bitten. The very first cell held the stolen peoples that were still in the transition of the fever, but the people in the third cell could hardly be called that any longer. Soon, they would be shipped to a different location, that allowed more privacy within the city.

d'Artagnan's blood put the bite's infection into remission. It was not a cure, but instead, a person infused with his taken blood, who then suffered from a zombie bite endured from a prolonged fever. Upon dying, and turning, instead of becoming the deadened, mindless flesh-eating creatures, they seemed to retain, not high-level brain functionality but sustained brain function enough for that of a simple-minded small child. They were commandable, or could be with a certain amount of strict programming.

So the Cardinal had started himself a dead army, but still wanted of his immunity to the disease. But with the boy gone, that was shortly becoming an impossibility!

Lemay struggled against the two Guards, but he'd never been much of a fighter, and soon, they had him strapped to one of the tables. His ankles, thighs, torso, wrists, shoulders. He strained against them, despite knowing and seeing himself how strong they were. It was different when he was on the other side, and perhaps he thought this was his punishment.

"You're going to tell me everything I want to know, Lemay." She murmured.

"I've said what I had to say. Despite you wanting to hear different, it's the truth nonetheless." He told her.

"I'm not going to start out gentle. You see, the Cardinal is very angry that his prize was stolen from him. You know how he gets about these things. So I tell you what—tell me what I want to know now, and nothing will happen to you."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Lemay protested. "If I helped the boy escape, why would I return?" He was asking that question of himself right now. Why had he returned?

"Mm." She just chuckled softly as she walked around to his feet and the small table where she'd set up her tools. He craned his neck to watch her. She smiled as she made a show of choosing, before she finally picked up something so thin and miniscule, that Lemay could hardly see what he was looking at in the torchlight. "See this? Looks so innocent and puny, but you wouldn't believe the pain it causes." She came back round his side and gave the man a better sight of... the sewing needle. "Shall I show you?"

She reached for his hand and his eyes widened. He clenched it into a tight fist. She simply tsked at him, and after a moment, pried his pinkie from the fold. She lined up the point at the tip of his finger, above the bone, and with thimble-d thumb—pushed.

Lemay gritted his teeth at the unexpected pain, and he tried to fight the scream at the back of his throat as she continued to push the needle into his flesh further. Until finally, the scream was torn from his as the pain became too much, as she kept pushing until the needle was entirely embedded in his pinkie, claming its whole length. The metal forced it straight, and if he managed to bend the digit, he'd just hurt himself further by pushing the needle deeper.

"It wasn't a lie." She said, looking down upon him, gasping. "Now, tell me where and who helped you take d'Artagnan."

"I don't know!" he cried.

"Wrong answer." She retrieved another needle.

"Please!"

"Oh, Lemay. You simple fool." She cooed, and pried another finger loose. "You know how this works."

He screamed as she pushed the needle deep into his ring finger. Blood smearing his fingers and hers. And then she took another and another, asking him each time. His answers, if there were any, were lost in his screams of pain as they peeled the walls. She could hear the movement in the next cell over, the stirrings that his racket and pain was causing in the heightened zombies, the smell of his blood.

She gave him a moment to think it over, before she moved onto his other hand.

Milady sighed in boredom and frustration. It had been days, and she seemed to be getting nowhere with Lemay. Either she was losing her touch, or Lemay simply was telling the truth and didn't know a thing because there was no possibility that the weasel was strong enough to resist her ministrations. She'd known this man for years—he was a coward. One more push, she could feel it. She just needed that one bit to break him, and he'd crack open like an egg and that golden yolk would be hers.

"I've been going through your things and all your reports," she grinned at him, "And I discovered this little treasure." She went to the side table and picked up the large clamp and reached with it into the small crate. Lemay paled, he knew exactly what that was. "Recognize it?" she turned back to him, holding the clamp at arm's length, the soft groaning emitting from the ragged vocal cords of the zombie head held it its grip.

He shuddered at the sight of his own invention. "You're going to turn me?"

"Perhaps," she purred. "But not just yet." She stepped closer and showed the head off, bringing it close to his face. He turned his head away and whimpered, smelling its death breath. "As you can see, I've made a modification of my own!"

Lemay slowly turned his head back, at how close the bitter was. He was shaking so bad, his gaze could hardly focus. But finally, he found her 'modification' in its working maw. She'd pulled all of its teeth.

"What do you expect that to do?" he blurted in confusion and instantly realized his mistake.

"Since you asked so nicely," she smirked. "I'll show you."

He was not a very brave man, very courageous. He's made many mistakes in his life, most of which happened after he lost his wife and unborn child. He'd let himself be taken in and turned towards the Cardinal's and Milady's darkness. It was years before he convinced himself to turn towards the Queen and Treville, to become their spy.

But he wasn't strong enough for this. He was fooling himself if he thought that he was. Milady knew it too. He swore to himself that he would die with these secrets safe. Maybe in a different life…

"Okay! Alright! Please!" Lemay screamed. "Please! I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!"

Milady smiled. "Well, don't stop now."

In the end, he kept one of them. Perhaps, in the long run, the most important.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, gasping heavily, pain fuzz-ing out his vision as he turned his head and watched her. The torture had started with the sewing needles and had ended with the zombies. She had long since cut away his clothes. What happened in between was something that his body would not soon forget. Hi mind on the other hand…

"Oh, one last thing before I go." And she infused him with the remainder of d'Artagnan's blood.

He struggled against his bonds, and just as before, they held tight, keeping him in place for her to do unto him whatever she wished.

He sent a prayer up to God for forgiveness as she left him to the blood, and turned to the crates again on another table. The severed zombie head she turned back to him with, its teeth fully intact, was one that he knew well. Like the other one, both had been used on multiple occasions to bite d'Artagnan.

He didn't deserve the kindness and amazement of d'Artagnan's own bite. He didn't deserve to have his life saved like that, only to put the boy through torture.

"Let me go! I can still help!" he begged, desperate.

She chuckle. "Don't worry on that account, you're going to be plenty of help."

And she let the monster bite him.

"You have something worth reporting?" Richelieu didn't even look up from the papers on his desk at her entry.

"Yes." And that made him pay attention. "I was starting to believe that Lemay was an innocent in all of this—well, as innocent as a man of his reputation could be—but I can be very persuasive."

"Congratulations." The Cardinal deadpanned. His eyes narrowed. "Now where is the boy?"

"I was reporting to you first." Milady swallowed. "It was the Musketeers that took him."

"Musketeers!" he spat, jumping to his feet in rage. "Treville?"

"His Inseparables." She admitted. "Though Treville undoubtedly had a hand in it, Athos wouldn't make a move unless his precious Captain gave the order."

"Your husband has been a thorn in my backside that is starting to turn into a knife!" Richelieu slammed his fist against his desk, making some of the contents rattle with the force. "Lately, your past has been causing me more trouble than you are worth."

"If it weren't for me, we would not have a lead." She protested.

"If it weren't for you," he sneered, "I would already have a cure!"

She inhaled sharply and clenched her jaw to refrain from making further comment, digging herself deeper. Instead, she said. "Yes, Your Eminence. Treville—"

"Treville is nothing but a mouth piece!" Richelieu spat in return. "It's the Queen that controls the puppets. Each of their strings are wrapped around her fingers. Treville, his pets, Lemay—even the King! As long as she's by his side, he'll never listen to me completely."

"Impossible, even if to consider." Milady denied, reading his implication loud and clear. "She never leaves the Palace. If she's killed there, the blame would surely turn fast to us where the Musketeers are concerned."

"Us?" he scoffed, sitting. "You are nothing but a shadow in this place."

Her green eyes brightened with anger. "Without me—"

"Without you, what?" he said, coldly. She chewed her own words, staying silent. "You'll just have to take care of her guard dogs."

Milady nodded.

He raised a brow at her as she stayed where she was, instead of leaving and going to her task. "Was there something else?"

"No." She said after a moment. "None at all." She turned and made her leave, a curve on her red lips as they gears turned behind her lizard eyes. "Prepare to see my ghost before you die, Athos." She whispered. "And d'Artagnan, don't think I could ever forget about you."

Lemay's belief of having kept an important secret from Richelieu was dashed, even as his brain felt like it was melting through his slow, high-burning fever from d'Artagnan's blood and the bite, before he knew nothing more as the zombie-change turned him into something else—was soon, not to be the truth, even as much as he had tried to make it so in his last moments of freedom.

"Well?" Richelieu demanded of the other, grimy man in the apron.

The coroner jumped at his harsh tone and quickly turned to the body of the Red Guard upon his examination table, stripped of his uniform. "The torn throat was what killed him." He said, gesturing to ragged throat. "And upon first impression, I would have said that the stab wound to the temple killed him a second time for the change. But when I examined him further—it seems that the stab to the temple was administered hours after the body's death."

"What are you saying?"

"Well... the amount of time that the body originally died and then was stabbed in the brain, the man should have transformed into a zombie. But that doesn't not appear to be the case. His eyes are still completely blue, with no diminishment of the irises whatsoever." He shook his head, scratching it in his bafflement. "I don't know what you want me to tell you."

Richelieu was a quiet for a long time, and the coroner quickly became nervous in the muteness. The First Minister gave a quiet gasp and his steel eyes widened. That fool Lemay! He had it entirely the wrong way. It was not in the boy's blood, but his bite! He had found the cure, the one he had been searching for for such a long and finally had proof that his search had not been futile.

"You'd better not fail, Milady." He uttered, a smile splitting his lips as he stared at the dead Guard like he was the jewel that lead him to the crown.

He would have d'Artagnan, he would know the Gascon's secrets—know what made him tick.

She'd had reports from her spies of the Inseparables leaving the city a few days before, but had no reports of their return through the gates. Only for days later, of the rumour that the Spaniard Musketeer was bitten. One of Athos' closest friends—dying! And on the same day, she'd gotten her reports of d'Artagnan. The word that a bitten boy was in the city spread fast and sent the Red Guards scrambling. She had had her worry that Athos had managed to smuggle the boy out of the city, she had no doubt that he could have managed so, but this news was very pleasing indeed. Trapped in the city walls, she would have the boy.

Milady gave a small smile. Her husband clearly had no control in the matter—so why not cause him a little more chaos?

...Now...

"Look at the state you're in." Aramis chided from where he lay in his bed, propped up with pillows at his back. It had been several hours since he'd survived the zombie bite, and though initially exhausted, his appetite and thirst were big, but his friends made him stay his place. "You look worse off than me, and I just died. What happened?"

d'Artagnan's cheeks heated as he sat in one of the chairs and allowed Athos to treat the slash on his thigh that Porthos gave him when he jumped the man.

"Other than this, he mean's." Athos nodded to his thigh.

"Oi!" Porthos protested. "'E jumped me. I was surprised." He looked a spot embarrassed, scratching the back of his head. "Didn't I say I was sorry?"

"Actually..." d'Artagnan hesitantly teased, feeling more comfortable with the man after their heart-to-heart. But he didn't care. It was just another mark among many.

Porthos glowered at the boy, but allowed his brow to twitch in slight amusement as the other two men smiled. "You got me back with this bite, didn't you?"

"I still don't think that's something you should really complain about." Aramis deadpanned. "Saved my life."

Porthos sighed. "'Ow did this turn 'round on me again? Weren't we on 'is state?" he pointed at the boy.

d'Artagnan looked slightly irked at having the conversation directed back at him, for which he had so expertly steered away from himself. Athos finished treating the cut on his thigh and stood again, stepping back. He gave the teen a single look. d'Artagnan sighed and looked away, picking at his torn sleeve with cleaned fingers.

"I panicked." He muttered quietly.

"What was that?" Aramis asked. Athos even had a hard time hearing the boy, and he was just five feet away.

"When you guys didn't return by that third day..." he shook his head. "All I could think, was that something terrible had happened. So I forced myself out the door. But for all my determination, I soon realized that I had no idea where the garrison was so I tried to ask someone. The old man seemed to think that I was trying to steal from him, and shoved me to the ground. When he grabbed me, he tore my sleeve and saw the bites on my arm and started shouting. People crowded around, the Red Guards called for… I managed to get free and I just ran blindly, until I couldn't run any longer and I hid in an alley through the night. In the morning, I was spotted and I broke through the partition at the back of the alley that led to the Court of Miracles." He wasn't the only one that shivered at the name and memory. "When I managed to find my way out of that place and back onto the streets, I ran into a Musketeer and asked him about Aramis." He looked at the Spaniard. "He told me you were bit, and he showed me here."

"That was reckless!" Aramis protested at the end of his adventure. The Gascon almost looked mutinous in response.

"He's right." Athos nodded, his expression stern. "Your bites were seen. The Red Guards were alerted and a search is being issued right now for you. Milady and the Cardinal will have been informed. If they believed you out of the city, the same could not be said now. It was pure luck that you weren't caught, and ran into a Musketeer. Nothing else. I explicitly told you to stay in my apartment and leave for nothing. You gave your word, d'Artagnan—and you broke it just the same!" he ran frustrated fingers through his hair.

d'Artagnan's lips tightened, looking completely thrashed. "I—" he suddenly felt that he wanted to burst into tears. It wasn't because Athos had scared him, but because the man was angry and disappointed at him. "I'm sorry!" he gasped with uneven breaths. "I did not mean to. All I could think was you were all I had left, and I couldn't lose you like I lost Pa!"

Athos sighed and suddenly softened. He dropped to his knees in front of the boy. "I did not mean to be so harsh." He said. "But what if something had happened to you? When I went to my apartment to retrieve you and found it empty. I dreaded the worst. When I found out that a boy was seen with a bite, it was one of the worst possible fears that I could have held come true. We risked our lives to rescue you, d'Artagnan. You owe it to us, to not risk yourself so foolishly again. Can you swear that you will think before you act, that you will not let your heart rule your head so?"

The teen nodded desperately, tears of relief pricking his brown eyes. "I swear, Athos. I swear,"

"Good." He patted the boy's knee, and pushed to his feet. "One less thing to worry about." Being around Aramis certainly softened his heart. But d'Artagnan was one of the bravest people that he knew and had played his own part in the matter.

Any doubts that the teen had that these men were his friends and important to him, vanished with all that Athos had said, despite how new his connection with Porthos was.

They all jumped at the knock at the door. Athos stood and answered it to find a messenger boy.

"Sir," the boy nodded. "A message for you, sir." He held out the folded parchment to Athos who took it with a nod, fishing a coin from his pocket. He shut the door after the boy left, turning back to the room, looking at the blank pressed red wax seal.

"Well?" Aramis raised a brow at the blue-eyed man. "Who's it from?"

Athos' face was contorted into a specifically blank mask. "Milady." He replied, knowing the addressed scrawl anywhere.

"The Wicked Witch is calling!" Porthos cawed unhelpfully.

Athos made no move and continued to stare at it.

"Read it." Aramis encouraged. "She obviously knows we rescued d'Artagnan, and is desperate enough to reveal herself."

Athos nodded and took the seat that Porthos had offered him. Lemay must have finally talked and he didn't want to know what she had done to make the matter so—just that they would not be seeing the royal physician again. Taking a deep breath, the Musketeer Lieutenant broke the wax seal and opened the folded parchment.

"Dear husband—"

d'Artagnan stilled at that. "She's your wife?"

Athos nodded, but he kept his eyes trained on the letter, reading silently. It had taken years to learn how to school his expression, his heartbreak a keen lesson. His hands trembled slightly with his filling dread, anger and sadness.

"So... that part was true." The boy muttered, turning ashen.

"What was true?" Porthos raised a brow.

d'Artagnan swallowed as Porthos and Aramis looked at him, but Athos still had his eyes on the letter. The boy was unable to speak, unable to say the tainted words. The truth was, he hadn't time to think back on that moment in the ruins, it seemed so long ago, so unimportant. The same could not be said now. The whole scene took on an entirely different meaning now.

Athos finally looked up from the letter, his blue gaze piercing as he looked over at the uncomfortable boy. "She... seduced you?" d'Artagnan's bitten lip and avoided gaze was all the answer that he needed to know it was the truth.

"What?" both Aramis and Porthos exclaimed.

"She's a Cradle Monster!" Porthos gasped and Aramis managed to kick him from where he sat at the foot of his bed.

"I'm sorry." Athos whispered. The other three looked at him in complete shock. "It's my fault—"

"You cannot blame yourself for this, Athos." Aramis interrupted in denial. "You cannot heave all that she does onto your own shoulders."

"Can't I?" he demanded, jumping to his feet and palming his forehead. "If I had the guts to kill her myself after Thomas but I... took the coward's way out."

Porthos stepped to the distressed man and grasped either of his shoulders, giving him a shake. "You loved 'er, Athos. We all do stupid things because of love." Athos flinched at that last remark, but the big man pushed forward. "You're as 'uman as the rest of us. She 'as a mind and will of 'er own. This is who she was before you met 'er. You can't change someone who doesn't want to change. There was nothin' you could 'ave done, other than what you did. You saved yourself by allowin' her that chance, and it lead you to us."

Athos exhaled as he looked back into his friend's firm and dark brown eyes, before he gave a miniscule nod in acknowledgement. Porthos squeezed his shoulders and gave a nod as well, before he stepped back and sat on the edge of the bed, to give the man his room.

Athos ran his fingers through his hair and turned his gaze back to the guilt and shame ridden boy. "d'Artagnan—"

"I'd just buried Pa..." d'Artagnan whispered hoarsely before the older man could continue. "The bites fever was laden in my body. I heard a woman scream, and I didn't even think about it. I saved her. The fever completely overwhelmed me then, and I passed out. I didn't expect to wake up again—but then I did, my fever broken. She had saved me, instead of killing me. I didn't want to think, I didn't want to feel," he sobbed, "I wanted to lose myself from the world!" He'd believed she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, he was sickened by the thought now. "She said... she said her husband abused her and was a killer. As soon as she said your name—" he shook his head. "All I could think, was of killing you!" He tried to explain, but he just seemed to be making excuses for himself when that was not his intention!

"How could you have known?" Athos said softly. There was no judgement or accusation in his voice. "She is a liar and a manipulator, that's what she does. She did it to me and she did it to you. But we're not going to give her that power any longer." d'Artagnan sniffed and scrubbed his teary eyes with his sleeve and he nodded to the man. Athos looked at each of them evenly. "Let us never speak of this." He said coldly.

An awkward and uncomfortable silence followed.

"Keep going," Aramis instructed finally, nodding to the letter. "What did she write?"

Athos nodded and seemed glad enough to turn back to it in that moment, but the feeling soon fell through. He made sure to avoid over her mocking words of himself, her mention of Thomas, and her seduction of the boy at his most vulnerable.

"You were right about Lemay, it was him who told her about us—God knows how she did it. She knows d'Artagnan is still in Paris, the rumour of a bitten boy in the city a confirmation of that." He glanced sideways at the boy; d'Artagnan grimaced in guilt at that last part. Athos turned a droll stare upon the Spaniard next as he continued, "She expresses her compassion upon your death, hearing of you being bitten on our last assignment."

"A genuine sympathy, I assume." Aramis commented wryly.

"Genuine malice, you mean." Porthos said.

"Yes," he nodded. "I was wondering why it sounded weird. Wait!" Aramis held up his hand, his brow furrowed as he thought. "If she believes me dead, then—"

"She must not know about the cure?" Athos finished the thought. "Perhaps."

"That Red Guard with 'is throat torn out and no 'ead wound is a big indicator, isn't it?" Porthos pointed out in disagreement.

The older man nodded his accent on that. "Or just that Aramis wasn't bit by d'Artagnan."

There was a quiet moment of contemplation as they all thought on the matter, but the truth was, they could never truly know unless they asked the woman directly.

"Perhaps it's something used to our advantage…" Athos said.

"Whether they know of the cure, or not—she's coming for me, and they're never going to stop!" the teen wailed.

"She'll never get her hands on you again, d'Artagnan." Aramis swore vehemently. "We won't let that happen."

d'Artagnan seemed to be reassured by the Spaniard's fierce tone and repeated promise, and Athos and Porthos' accompanying nods of agreement and he gave a nod. He hated to feel so weak and vulnerable, but he couldn't stop that dark fear he felt towards the woman and the Cardinal.

"Treville should know of this," Athos said suddenly. "Porthos?" he jerked his head to the door and the big man followed him out, leaving the Spaniard and Gascon alone, but not before giving Aramis a pointed look that said they would speak privately later. It seemed the teen was the only one who didn't notice the abrupt and meaningful halt to the conversation, too distracted upon matters just discussed.

Finding out that d'Artagnan had had sex with Milady was a useless information, and the marksman almost wished that the teen could have kept it to himself. He could see the same thoughts passing through the Gascon's mind as well. He was sure there was several things that the boy wished he could change.

"Get the sewing kit," Aramis instructed the Gascon. They were both in need of a distraction. "We might as well mend your clothing while there's time."

d'Artagnan nodded and after a moment, went and retrieved the small kit from the trunk at the foot of Aramis' bed as indicated and sat next to the Spaniard upon the bed.

[tbc]

the M~U~S~K~E~T~E~E~R~S - S~R~E~E~T~E~K~S~U~M eht

So, if any of you started to believe I was lucid, I sure as hell don't seem it now, not even to myself. *First, admit it to oneself*. Anyway... insanity. Hoped it made some sense. d'Artagnan's blood is not a cure. His blood makes zombie drones apparently, that can be controlled like dogs. Lemay's fate seems pretty sealed—maybe. The Cardinal already knows that there is some form of communication between the Queen and Treville, and has discovered the cure and is raising a dead army(?) [exactly where am I going with this, I ask myself upon my reflection in the mirror]. And, what exactly does Milady plan by 'revealing' herself to Athos?

Hmm...

y